Community college underfunding— MoneyBox — Slate | Blogger Matthew Yglesias shows that over the past decade, per-pupil spending has jumped at higher-end public research universities, despite lower funding from state governments. Community colleges don’t have the same financial resources to weather the cuts, so they have had to reduce staff and programs even while raising tuition.

Community college students have the greatest level of need, but they receive the least resources and they’re increasingly pressed but tend to get overlooked in media accounts of funding arguments that instead focus on exclusive schools with a much more affluent client base.

Government & Politics

LSU hospitals privatization cost more than budget — The Advocate | “The total operating expense associated with the privatization of nine LSU hospitals will hit $1 billion during the new fiscal year, Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols said Thursday. That’s more than is in the current year’s budget — $955 million — for the state to operate the charity hospitals. And more than the $626 million Gov. Bobby Jindal proposed for private companies to operate the public hospitals in the fiscal year that begins July 1.”

LA GOP seeing “black helicopters” — forgotston.com | C.B. Forgotston surgically dissects a brouhaha over document requests from the Legislative Auditor. Democrats had no problem with the inquiry, but the state GOP initially called it “an unprecedented government intrusion” and wondered if it was retaliation for opposing a budget legislation from Democrats and the Fiscal Hawks.

American Zombie: “Complaints” —American Zombie | Blogger Jason Berry resumes his investigation into the tangled affair over quasi-public Wisner Fund, which owns land in and around Port Fourchon. He raises new questions about the legal counsel involved in various city claims against BP, and recommends reading this recap of his findings for those who need to get up to speed on the story.

For his initial pitch on legislation aimed at curtailing oil and gas activity at Lake Peigneur, state Sen. Fred Mills turned the Senate chamber into a movie theater. Mills, R-St. Martinville, showed grainy, decades-old news footage of the water draining in a violent whirlpool after a drilling accident in 1980. The images failed to convince the state Senate to embrace Mills’ Senate Bill 200 to stop the expansion of natural gas storage underneath the lake. … He [Mills] asked legislators to side with the lake’s residents instead of the dozen lobbyists hired by the “oil and gas boys.”

The proposed legislation creates a clear path for getting new chemicals on the market, while protecting trade secrets and intellectual property. It also allows for regulation of chemicals that are now off-limits to regulators — mainly those introduced before 1976 when the Toxic Substances Control Act was enacted.

Under the compromise, all active chemicals in commerce must be evaluated for safety and labeled as either “high” or “low” priority based on the potential risk to human health and the environment. It imposes tighter scrutiny for the higher-risk chemicals.

It mandates that the regulatory process be done with transparency, something Vitter said is missing from many current Environmental Protection Agency regulatory systems.

Mark Moseley blogs at Your Right Hand Thief. Until mid 2014, Mark Moseley was The Lens' opinion writer, engagement specialist and coordinator for the Charter Schools Reporting Corps. After Katrina and the Federal Flood he helped create the Rising Tide conference, which grew into an annual social media event dedicated to the future of New Orleans.